Puppy Love and Other Tales
by Kairos Impending
Summary: This is where I'll be putting my one-shot stories set in Season 8. Check each chapter for additional information.
1. Puppy Love

**Author's Note: **This story is meant to be a behind-the-scenes look at events taking place in issue #31 of Season 8. If you haven't read the comics, it won't make much sense, but there isn't much plot anyway-- I just wanted to honor some of the romances that are happening at this point in canon. Buffy is deliberately left out of this one in favor of those who are more sure of their footing.

If you're wondering what happened to my promise to keep updating "Older," I had some more computer problems which were even more vicious than the first time, but I'm pretty sure I really am back now. And then I got kind of stuck on that story so I decided to work on some other stuff first. It'll be back.

Happy Valentine's Day! _Especially _if you're a romantic single, like me.

* * *

Anyone trying to get from one side of the room to the other had to navigate a labyrinth of patients on cots, packed in tightly enough that only narrow spaces were left between. Oz had been back and forth enough times to have worked out the easiest route to Bay's bed, but an hour ago she had been deemed well enough to be moved, and now she was in their own bedroom getting the rest that she needed. The vacancy she left downstairs, Oz saw, was already filled.

The house had never been so crowded, but after that battle, it wasn't nearly crowded enough for his liking. He wondered if they would need to find ways to send the bodies of the fallen Slayers home, or if Twilight would make any effort to recover those of his own men. Seeing so many wounded around him was almost a relief for Oz. Wounded meant alive. He began picking a new path around the room, looking for anyone who needed immediate attendance. There wasn't enough real medical knowledge to go around, but those who were unharmed still had their hands full acting as caretakers, and Oz's hands needed something to do anyway.

No distinction had been made between "us" and "them" as far as treatment went, but it was still fairly obvious, even without knowing any individuals by sight, which sides they came from. Nearly all of Buffy's warriors were Slayers, or had been before relinquishing their power: teenage girls. Nearly everyone on Twilight's side was a voting-age male. The only time any of them caught Oz by surprise was when he walked past a reclining soldier while making the rounds, and the soldier said, "Oz. Long time."

Oz turned. Riley was harder to recognize when he was horizontal, but it was definitely him. "Hey. Look who's alive."

"No fault of my own." Riley's voice was weak, but he was making a game attempt at a smile. "Nice place. Sorry if we tracked in some mud."

"Don't sweat it. Soon as Bay's on her feet she'll have all of you set up with mops and buckets."

"Bay." Riley stated her name as if it were a puzzle; his mind must have still been partially clouded by his last dose of morphine. "Your wife. Is she…?"

Oz sat down cross-legged beside the cot and inclined his head. "She's okay. Doing the recuperation thing. Like you." He didn't really want to discuss Bay's condition any further; she _was_ doing okay, but she was so in tune with him that talking about her in her absence always made him feel like he would somehow attract her awareness, and he didn't want to disturb her rest. "How's yours?"

For a moment Riley looked so sad that Oz feared the worst, but then he closed his eyes and confided, "I miss her. I'm glad she's away from all this, but I miss her. She doesn't even know about Twilight. I wasn't allowed to breathe a word about the mission. And you know what?" He raised one hand in an incomplete emphatic gesture. "She was okay with it. She's _that cool._"

Oz grinned. Riley's body might be battered at the moment, but his heart, it seemed, was cured. News about the Scooby Gang's personal relationships was always vague and fragmented when it made it to Oz at all, but from what he had seen before leaving Sunnydale, Riley wasn't the type to give up on Buffy easily, and Buffy wasn't the type to offer her unconditional love to his type. Their breakup hadn't been unlike his own with Willow, and it was good to know that such hurt was in the past. For all of them.

"Hey," said Riley. "Don't you have a baby?"

"Yeah. Willow's watching him."

Riley's drugged weariness dulled his expressions to a point, but his surprise at hearing this statement was evident. "You left him with _Willow_? Sweet girl, crazy intelligent, tried to end the world one time?"

"She's fine." It was the truth. It had always been the truth, even if Willow needed to be talked into it every time. "She won't go dark unless she's way off kilter, and that's the kind of possibility that's not. Kelden's a very calming influence."

For a few long seconds Riley lay silent, eyes wide with concern, and then he sighed and rolled his head into his pillow. "You're right. You're the dad, it's none of my business. I'm not all here."

A few people came in from outside, and Oz looked up to see who it was. Riley tried to look too, but winced as soon as his torso moved, and Oz laid a hand on his shoulder to keep him still. "It's just Dawn and Xander. You need another dose of anything?"

"No. Buffy's gonna want a full Twilight report. I'm working up to maximum coherency."

Oz nodded. In his opinion, Riley was going to need to sleep first, and Buffy wasn't around anyway, but there was no point in voicing it. Telling a soldier to relax was a surefire way to induce to opposite reaction. "You want kids?" he asked instead.

The distraction worked; Riley's face lit up with enthusiasm. "Yeah. Soon as I'm out of this, we're gonna start trying. Only, we've got some disagreement on how many."

"Oh?"

"Sam wants a dozen, and I think ten is plenty."

They talked about their families for a little while, keeping their voices low to avoid disturbing the other invalids, until Oz could see that Riley was beginning to drift off. He sounded like he was still trying to talk but couldn't concentrate on any single thought, and his eyes kept opening and then closing again. Finally he looked right at Oz, smiled, and said, "You got me into such a big fight with Buffy. Dangerous. Shades of grey. There are good werewolves…"

He was snoring a few seconds later. Oz stood up and slipped between a few rows of cots to get to the corner of the room where Dawn and Xander were talking over an arrangement of medications. Ice Nose, who seemed to have taken a liking to the two of them, was in Xander's arms, but Oz wasn't surprised to see him set the puppy down so he could squeeze Dawn's hand, or to see her respond by lacing her fingers into his and lingering there. They had been quiet about whatever was between them, but some kind of bond was there and growing steadily stronger. Both looked up when Oz approached, nearly identical in their movements.

"How's our mole holding up?" asked Xander.

"Pretty happy to not be a mole anymore, sounds like," Oz replied. "How are the rest of them looking?"

"Stable. Ish. No losses in the last…" He checked his watch. "…Forty-three minutes."

Dawn—who must have gone through a growth spurt in the last few years, and now very nearly towered over Oz—took a long, unhappy look in Riley's direction. Then she turned back and said urgently, "Oz, you have to answer something for me."

"Hm?"

"What's green and fuzzy and can kill you if it falls out of a tree?"

Oz's immediate reaction was to look at Xander for more information, but he didn't get any; Xander was peering at Dawn with one brow arched far over his eye patch, and Dawn was altogether ignoring him. "You _have _to tell me," she persisted. "You said it like six years ago and you never gave me the answer!"

After a few additional moments of silence, Xander was the first to speak. "This has actually, legitimately been on your mind for that long, hasn't it?"

Dawn threw her hands up. "It's not like, top of the list, but what if we're dead before we see Oz again?" She looked aghast at herself as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "And now I'm giving us all the sad. Just great."

Xander put an arm around her shoulders for a sidelong hug, and Oz, thinking quick, picked up Ice Nose from the floor and handed him to Dawn. "Puppy therapy," he said as she got her face licked. "It's one of our secret meditative techniques here."

"You ever going to tell us why you call him Ice Nose?" said Xander.

Oz shrugged. "It makes Bay laugh." He ruffled the puppy's ears and smiled at Dawn, who seemed to be reacting well to the therapy treatment. "I'm going to see how Willow and Kelden are doing. Come get me if you need help in here."

"Hey!" said Dawn before he was three steps away. "What's--?"

"Oh, right. It's a pool table."

Leaving the makeshift infirmary was more of a release than Oz would have liked to admit. He was still sensitive to odors with emotional significance, and the smell of the wounded and dying was especially intense. He breathed easier as he walked the halls, thinking about Kelden, and almost forgot that there were other people around until one of them stepped right into his path and stopped him from taking one step further.

"So you're Mister Puppy-Love-Heartbreaker-Disappearing-Act-Guitarist-Joe-Cool, huh?" said the Slayer into his face. "That not enough for you? Think you can still screw things over a little more?"

"Uh," said Oz, racking his brain for the woman's name.

"I don't care what kind of nostalgia's involved. No head games with my girl. Got that?"

"Married," Oz explained. Was it Madison? Roosevelt?

"I'm not asking about your personal life. You have any idea what you did?"

"No," he assured her.

Kennedy—that was it—gestured broadly at the door behind her. "Now she wants a _kid!_"


	2. Creatures of Legend

**Title: **Creatures of Legend

**Author: **Kairos

**Characters: **Xander/Dawn

**Setting: **Somewhere between the "Time of Your Life" arc and "Living Doll"

**Notes: **It's looking likely that I'll have more Season 8 one-shots that I want to share, so I'm revising the doc I started for "Puppy Love" and turning it into another collection of stories. Everything you'll find here takes place in the comics 'verse; beyond that, I'll describe who they're about and when they're set in the notes for each one.

* * *

Xander woke unpleasantly, twitching from a nightmare that lasted for mere seconds. It had no form and left no memory. He took a deep breath and rolled over, feeling for Anya beside him.

Her absence, followed by the return of his full consciousness and realization that she had been dead for over a year, was the kind of nightmare which he knew well and was beginning to lose its power over him. It had been a long time since his subconscious had slipped back into that time in his life. He didn't like it, but it was hard to know that one day he might leave it behind altogether, and she would only come into his head when he called her there.

It was early, and there was little that needed to be done aside from his routine surveillance checks. He went over the day's agenda with Kennedy, waved hello at Buffy and the small group of Slayers she was eating breakfast with, and then made his way out of the building with an apple in one hand and a bag full of them in the other.

Dawn emerged from the trees before he had made it down the hill, and he greeted her with the underhanded toss of an apple her way. She caught it neatly and took a bite immediately, and he frowned. It was so hard to tell if she was getting enough to eat, with her new physiology and extra stomach. Her previous incarnation seemed to have compensated for many of the practical issues it raised: she ate a lot when she was a giant, sure, but proportionally it was still much less than a body her size should have needed. It was a relief that the form came with a safeguard to ensure it wasn't lethal, but he wasn't going to bank on the next one functioning the same way.

"How'd the hay-munching experiment go?" he asked when he was within earshot.

Dawn swallowed and shrugged. "Kind of weird. Like, it tasted okay, which was of the weird itself, but then it just took so long to chew that I gave up. And I don't think I really need it, it's just this freaky craving I get."

"Copy that." He bit into his own apple and talked around it. "Any other freaky cravings? I can go raid the kitchen for you. We've got some mouth-watering unidentified vegetable matter."

She sighed and began lowering herself to the ground, a complicated maneuver that she made look strangely graceful. Each of her four slender legs slowly stretched and folded until they were beneath her and she was more or less at eye level with Xander. "Chocolate-covered gummy bears," she said ruefully. "Good luck rounding up any of ithose/i in Scotland."

He was mentally constructing a joke about launching a special ops mission for gummy bears when she abruptly spoke again. "Xander, are you alright? You look kind of…"

"Sleep last night was not so much," he admitted. "Actually, I was wondering." He scratched his neck. "Fort walls are kind of starting to close in. Do you want to go somewhere today? Just you and me?"

"Go somewhere?" she echoed skeptically. "Whatever techie vehicles you've procured by now, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to fit in the shotgun seat of any of them."

"I was thinking more like…I mean, if you don't…it worked before…"

Dawn looked completely blank for a moment, and then she laughed. "Yeah, alright. Just don't tell anyone I let you, or they'll all think I'm open for free pony rides. And don't talk about it in ways that make it sound dirty and watch your heels or you end up kicking my ribs." She flicked her apple core down at where he had left the bag. "Let's go."

Mounting a centaur—no, he corrected himself, that sounded dirty—getting onto the back of a centaur was actually easier than it looked, especially when she was already lying down. He swung his leg over and steadied himself with a few awkward shifting movements. "Okay, I'm re—whoa whoa whoa!"

Dawn was standing up, not quickly, but the sudden change in Xander's altitude made him experience a spontaneous re-evaluation about whether this was a good idea. "Chill out, two-legs," she said. "I gotcha. Now hold on."

iEasier said than done/i, Xander thought. iCan't exactly pick up the reins here./i. He looked at his options: mane? No, that just looked like a mane but was actually hair and should not be pulled. Shoulders? Too high up to be helpful. Her very human and svelte midriff? Bad idea. iBad/i idea. "Uh," he explained.

She twisted halfway around so he could see her grin, and then reached behind herself with both hands and picked up his to place them at the junction of her human and horse halves. "Wow, Dawnie," he said as each of his palms came into contact with a reassuringly solid curve that wasn't quite visible to the eye. "You've still got a pelvis."

"Thanks for noticing," she said dryly. "Now, for real. Hold on."

The warning was timely; as soon as the sentence was finished, they were off at a canter. Xander had a moment to doubt his ability to stay on top, and then his mind turned to marveling at how secure he felt in comparison to their mad dash from the castle after Warren and Amy's attack. His hold on Dawn's hips kept him centered, but it didn't feel like he was gripping a pair of handlebars—more like she was his dance partner and for once he wasn't required to lead.

"Can I yell 'yeehaw'?" he asked, finding that his mouth was close enough to her ear that she could hear him over the thunder of her hooves and the wind whistling in their ears.

"Knock yourself out.," she replied.

i"Yeeeeehaw!"/i

His exuberance nearly made him lose his seat, and Dawn, who could apparently feel it, slowed momentarily. "I didn't say knock yourself ioff/i!"

"I'm good, I'm good, I just…say, are we going to a real place or a we'll-know-when-we-get there place?"

"Why, you want me to pull over and ask for directions?"

Xander carefully removed some of her hair from his mouth before answering. "No, but how am I gonna know what to wear? I mean, next time I see Lorelahn I want to make an impression, you know, put on my formal eye patch."

Dawn went into a bouncy trot which lasted for only a few strides before smoothing into a comfortable walk. "Oh, we're not going to the forest. Lorelahn, well, he ireally/i doesn't like you. It's funny, he's too legendary to say it outright, but whenever your name comes up—are you eating my hair?"

"You could tie it back," he began to protest, and then was distracted from it by his own thoughts. Dawn talked about him with her forest friends?

With the landscape no longer whizzing by him quite so quickly, Xander began to look around. He saw why Dawn had fallen to a walk: they were headed up a steep incline, and he would have slid right off her rear if she was moving any faster. He resumed his hold on her hips and eagerly tried to see what was at the top of the hill.

At the top of the hill was a view, and it was one well worth the journey. The ocean was sprawled out beneath them, not a placid horizon but a lively stampede of grey and white waves breaking on the rocky cliff. Some splashed so high that Xander could feel mist on his face, despite the tremendous drop between himself and the water. The sky was endless and blank above them, waiting for weather to be written on it.

Dawn shivered and rubbed her arms, left bare by her sleeveless black top, and he took off his sweater and offered it to her. "Thanks," she sighed as she slipped it over her head. "So what do you think?"

"It's amazing. I can't believe I didn't know it was here. I mean, I knew the ocean was here, but…"

"I found it when I was a giant. It's just a few really big steps from the castle."

He chuckled and let go of her hips to link his hands at her belly, not really noticing that he had done it until she folded her own hands over his and leaned back against him. Pleased, he gave her a little hug and let her head find a spot to rest on his shoulder.

"Xander," she murmured after a few silent minutes of watching the sea. "Is this weird?"

He considered that. "Do you want it to be weird?"

"Pretty much since I hit puberty." She chuckled, a sad sound and one he would never tell her contained a trace of an equine whicker. "But I didn't really see it happening like this."

"No, but Dawn…you'll be human again, and then…"

"Don't talk about 'and then'. Maybe there's good things coming, maybe you and me, I don't know, but right now there's nothing. I'm just waiting to be human. Waiting to have a life again." She took a deep breath, and Xander could feel her shudder through the thick material of his sweater. "I figured out why Kenny picked these forms for me. I still have my own face, my own mind, but I can't be with anybody. I can't even think about being with anybody, because even in my head it seems perverted. He won't let me love like a girl."

Xander took this in with mild shock. They had already discovered that the transformations were Kenny's idea of revenge, but he had never put much thought into why the thricewise would choose a giant or a centaur. Dawn's conclusion made sense—she had lost many aspects of her normal life, but the restriction on physical intimacy must have been the core intention of the curse. "Son of a bitch," he breathed.

Dawn shrugged unhappily. "I cheated on him."

"I don't care. He didn't have any right. Nobody should be tinkering with your body unless you let him. Kenny needs to get punched in whatever body parts a thricewise has. Twice. Thrice." He put one hand on her shoulder and leaned forward so that he could see her face to face. "Dawnie, it's okay to feel bad about what you did, but don't ever believe you deserved this. Not from him, not from anyone."

"I thought you were jealous about me being a majestic creature of legend."

"Can't deny it. But you'll always be a majestic creature in my heart."

"And a girl?"

"And a girl."

She smiled at that and tucked her head under his chin, but he could feel her sigh from her second pair of lungs. It was, truth be told, weird. He didn't mind.


	3. To Thee My Master

**Title: **To Thee My Master

**Characters: **Angel and Faith

**Setting: **Between Season 8 and Season 9, at Faith's newly acquired property in London.

**Notes: **Written in anticipation of the soon-to-come _Angel & Faith_ series under the Season 9 title. It hasn't _quite _been Jossed yet, but I've no doubt it soon will. The title comes from one version of the anonymous "Horse's Prayer".

* * *

Two came into the stable, one of them the young female human who we had seen around lately and who always walked here from the direction of the house. It was her who got a respectful nod from our groom, and her who took Windsor's reins from him as he spoke a few words to her and left us. I remembered her, too, from a few days she had spent here once before. She had been with the good master then, but this time we waited in vain for him to return.

The other who had come in with the youth was human-shaped, but we both knew right away that he wasn't one. He made no sound but for his voice and his soft tread: no breath, no beating heart. Windsor's ears flicked back at the sight of him, but I knew from experience that such oddities wouldn't necessarily tell you anything about a rider's nature or capability. What interested me more was his smell: inhuman as well, but bearing the same host of recognizable emotion, and at the moment he was more hopelessly terrified than any rider I had ever taken. What he feared so much, I couldn't tell, but it didn't waver for an instant, and he didn't seem to be showing any other sign of it; certainly nothing a human could notice.

"So here's our boys," said the female. "This one's Windsor, and the one you've got there is Celoso. They're both pretty chill with new people, Reynard says."

The silent one looked me over, his hands still stuffed in his pockets. "Why are they saddled?" he asked, as if he didn't know what a saddle was for.

"Don't be braindead, Angel. You grew up when they were still inventing wheels, right? I know you know how to ride a horse. You're gonna teach me."

He shook his head vehemently. "No. Reynard can teach you."

The groom hadn't left me tied and nobody was holding me, and for a moment I contemplated walking out of the stable just to put a stop to the silly argument that was brewing here. Fortunately for them, the good master had never tolerated such antics, and I couldn't easily shake the habits he had instilled in me. I settled for stamping a hoof, which drew little reaction from either of them.

"That's not part of Reynard's job. Look, you don't have to ride if you don't want, but at least come outside with me and show me what I'm doing. If I'm gonna own horses, I'm gonna do more than sit around and look at them." She turned around, leading Windsor beside her, and he cast me a wary glance as he followed her out to the fenced ring.

The silent one hesitated, but not for long. Unlike the master's young friend, he walked on my near side and held the reins in both hands, and I suspected that she was right about his equestrian knowledge. The scent of terror was still there, though.

If it were up to me I'd always prefer being ridden in the daylight, but the outdoor ring has a bright set of lights and nothing within it to trip on, and the night was clear and dry. Windsor and the female were inside the ring, and the silent one led me through the gate after them and closed it carefully behind us. He tossed the reins back over my neck almost immediately and left me unsecured again, and again I wondered why he had decided that I could be trusted to not bolt on him.

"Always mount on the left side," he said to the female, standing close behind her. "Hold onto the reins and his withers with your left hand-"

"What's withers, yo?"

"Right here. Put your right hand on the cantle-"

"Jargon alert, level two."

"This is the cantle. Now your left foot goes in the stirrup, but don't let it slide back too far. Get some boots with thicker heels, okay? But for now, just hoist yourself up and swing your right leg over his back- good. That's all there is to it."

The female was on Windsor's back, looking immensely pleased with herself, and Windsor seemed comfortable enough considering that he was bearing a novice. "Let me adjust your stirrups before you start," said the silent one. "Sometimes the girth should be tightened after mounting, too. Hold on and I'll show you how to hold the reins."

He kept up a steady stream of instruction while the youth found her seat and gradually urged Windsor into a walk. I was relieved to see that Windsor wasn't in a mischievous mood, as he sometimes is. It seemed that his new rider would be with us for a while, and I wanted her to succeed, even if I wasn't the one carrying her. The silent one left me in the center of the ring while he walked beside Windsor, who kept turning his head to look at me. Insofar as two geldings like ourselves could be a herd, I was our leader, and if we were together he wanted to be following me. The routine didn't work when I was riderless, though, so he would have to deal with it.

Oddly enough, the silent one seemed to notice the source of Windsor's discomfort. He was also having some difficulty keeping pace on foot while speaking to the female, and finally he sighed, told her how to stop, and turned his gaze on me.

"Looks bored, doesn't he?" the female hinted.

His eyes wandered back to Windsor. "Why did you choose this one?" he asked.

She shrugged. "He's smaller. You're bigger. You'd fit better on Celoso."

Slowly he approached me while Windsor stood patiently where his rider had halted him. The fear in the silent one's scent spiked momentarily as he stood at my side, and then he reached out with one flat hand and stroked my neck. He didn't look away from me as he spoke again to the female: "Did Giles used to ride this horse?"

The words of human speech mean little to me, but I knew the name of the good master when I heard it. He was a strong rider, confident with a firm hand, able to command with his legs and seat and just a gentle touch of the reins. He groomed us himself and dropped chunks of apple into our grain. When he left, as he did so often and for so long at a time, he left us with the best of care, but I missed him. Windsor and I would spend months being exercised on the longe-line instead of doing the work we were meant for, and I often wondered if I was still someone's horse, or if the good master no longer had need for one.

"You gotta stop thinking that way, Angel," the female replied in a kind voice. "Just get on. The horse doesn't care what you've done."

He nodded gravely and looked me in the eye, and his fear slackened just a little bit. He ran his big hand down my neck one more time and murmured, close to my ear, "Well, Celoso." In one fluid motion he put his foot in the stirrup and vaulted into the saddle, ending in a posture that provided the final evidence that he knew what he was doing.

Feeling unexpectedly delighted that I had coaxed this strange creature into becoming a rider again, I felt it was appropriate to give him a quick test of skill, and let loose with one powerful buck. Windsor snorted and the youth on his back cried, "Whohoa!", but the silent one kept his seat, gathered up the reins, and spun us in a tight circle. I couldn't help but flash back to the first time the good master rode me. I tested him in the same way, and he responded with the same maneuver. It was the beginning of a fair partnership, and I was then ready to obey him.

"He's a smart one," my rider commented. "Do you want to try a trot, or anything?"

"Anything," said the female, beaming widely. "You know I haven't heard you say this much at once since the mask came off."

The silent one commanded me with a firm and gentle hand over to the rail to guide Windsor, saying nothing in response to the youth's remark about the mask. If I could have spoken to him, I would have liked to say that a terrified horse can do nothing but panic or flee. How a terrified man, human or otherwise, can still teach and ride and speak with confidence, I don't understand, but it's why he's the one on top and why I'll let him remain there.

I don't know if the good master will ever return. Windsor and I don't belong to ourselves; we have to take what comes and trust that those with the power over us will use it well and with benevolence. Once my life was as wisdom's steed, and now I will carry silence, and give him reason to trust me, and let him be the rider he once was.


	4. The Rose of Nothing

**Title:** The Rose of Nothing  
**Author:** Kairos  
**Wordcount:** 3536  
**Characters/Pairings:** Willow, Giles, Xander/Dawn  
**Rating:** General  
**Setting:** Between the penultimate and final issues of Season 8.  
**Summary:** We know what Giles left Faith and Buffy. What did he give everyone else? (Focus on Willow. NOT OPTIMISTIC.)  
**Notes: **Just sliding this one in before it gets Jossed by the first issue of Buffy's half of Season 9. Also, please to let me include the notes I originally posted with this story on my own LJ. It tells the tale of a sadly failed campaign:

"I reused the name for Oz's puppy that I made up in my first Season 8 fic. Now, listen. This is important. The comicsverse PTBs are wonderful at listening to us, and we have an as-of-yet untapped power to _add to canon._ If everyone who reads this sends an email or tweet to Scott Allie asking him to make "Ice Nose" the official name of Oz's dog, Nathan Fillion will buy the rights to Firefly.

Now, with that taken care of, let's move on to some mad angst."

* * *

"I just want to get out of London. With quickness. We finished the legal stuff, I got my consolation-less prize, it's time to let Faith settle in. Right?" Buffy looked around at the three other women in the room, her fingertips pressing down hard on the cover of her book that sat on the table before her. She hadn't stopped holding it or touching it for longer than a moment at a time since they had been there, Faith noted, though there was no affection or reverence in the way she handled it. The book was a hostage, Buffy its jailer.

Faith shrugged. "Did everyone else get their stuff?" She began searching her pockets. "I had a list..."

Buffy was instantly alert, looking ready to face a new onslaught of betrayal. "What list? Did he leave something to all of you?"

"Nobody you wouldn't expect," said Faith. "Dawn, Willow..."

Dawn nodded. "I got a book too," she said to Buffy, and pulled the item in question out of the shoulder bag she had left on one of the kitchen's chairs. It was a large, leather-bound volume, on which Faith couldn't make out a title.

"He gave you the Codex?" asked Willow, sounding a little surprised for the first time since they had all convened here at the flat.

"He left me the Codex. Big difference. Don't think I'd be getting my grubby hands on it if he were still around."

Buffy's expression had softened considerably. "That's amazing, Dawnie. He must have really appreciated how smart you are, trusting you with that."

Dawn shrugged, unhappy. Faith made a cautious effort to look neutral. "What is it?" she asked.

"Knowledge obscura," said Dawn. "Secrets of the underworld, gloom and doom prophecies. You know the type. He really loved it."

Faith leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms, imagining Giles' years of relative happiness sharing his life with these much-loved girls. "Yeah," she said, "he was like that with all his Apocalypse handbooks. Was just wondering why he only found a home for that one." She twitched and recovered quickly, gesturing in Buffy's direction. "And that one."

"The Codex was kind of the prize of the collection, though," Buffy explained. "Like, if Giles were a crazy cat lady, that would be the one who appeared on his doorstep as a kitten and has its own basket in every room. Whenever we were researching, there was always a 'Check the Codex, would you?' moment."

Dawn opened it gingerly and turned a few pages as Buffy watched over her shoulder. Faith didn't attempt to come close enough to look, and, she noted, neither did Willow. She could see from her distance some etchings and headers in ominous fonts, none of which meant anything to her. She turned her attention instead to Willow, who had her eyes closed as if in pain, and Buffy, who couldn't seem to handle too much of the book before looking away and then focusing on her friend instead. "Willow?"

The ex-witch's eyes snapped open. "Hm?"

"What did he give you?" Buffy asked.

Faith saw that Willow's skirt still bulged where she had pocketed the item in question when Faith had handed it over earlier, but she didn't reach for it. "Nothing," she replied. "I mean, not nothing, it was something, nothing much, I just, I just don't want to talk about it. I can show you later. It's just a...something."

"Okay," said Buffy doubtfully. "Faith, I was wondering, would you mind if I looked around in here for this one mug he used to have...?"

"The green one?" Dawn piped in.

Faith shrugged in response to Buffy's nod. "Have a ball. There's a lot more stuff in here than I need, so whatever fits in your suitcase is fair game."

Buffy began protesting with overdone sincerity that she only wanted to look and not take, and Faith repeated that taking was okay. She didn't want to have this conversation. She didn't like hearing the same desperate sincerity coming out of her own mouth. She didn't give a shit about whether Buffy took home Giles' favorite coffee mug.

Willow, no help at all, left the room.

†

"The Codex?" Xander's voice was tinny, his astonishment clear. "_The_the Codex? That's one hell of a pat on the back. Which you completely deserve, to be obvious. Most time I ever spent with that book was trying to get the ketchup off of the index before he found out about it."

"Yeah," said Dawn, allowing her body to relax and unfold on the bed now that she had him on the line and talking to her. "Um, you failed. Anyway, he left you something too."

"Oh yeah? Am I stoked or resigned?"

"I don't know. It's - well, it's his watch. You remember it?" She had the watch in her free hand, and rubbed her thumb along its elegant contours as she spoke. "It's a really nice one. Probably expensive. I'll bring it back for you."

Xander was silent for a moment, making Dawn want to keep babbling into the phone until he was forced to interrupt and supply her with his voice again. Before she succumbed, though, he cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, I remember it. What do you think he was trying to say?"

"What makes you think he was trying to say something? Maybe he just wanted to leave you something nice."

"Maybe." Xander sounded doubtful. "But Buffy with the 'go slay' book, and you with the 'go study' book...don't you kind of feel like this was all about giving us messages?"

Dawn pulled a pillow into her lap and hugged it. "Okay, so what kind of message is a watch? He thought you were chronically tardy? I didn't think you were chronically tardy."

"I didn't think I was deserving of expensive watches."

"Of course you are. He didn't underestimate you, Xander, I know he didn't. He thought you were - oh! I get it."

"What?"

She held the watch up near her ear as she explained. It was still ticking, but the time was off - it would need to be wound, and Xander would have to figure out how to do that himself, as he had most likely never before owned a watch that needed regular maintenance. "It's a man's watch. If he gave it to me or Buffy or Faith or Willow, we wouldn't wear it. He wanted it to be used. See, he's not giving us messages, he's giving us roles. You're the new patriarch."

Xander made a small sound of surprise, and then recovered in usual form: "Hey, Dawnzer, if you want to start having my babies, you can just say so. It's never too soon to make your man run screaming from commitment."

"Oh, please," she groaned, stifling a giggle at the same time. "I kinda have the next few years reserved for commitment to my own life, remember?"

"Good. Me too."

It wasn't lost on her that he was reserving his future for _her_life, not his own, and she didn't need to say it out loud to verify it with him. "So how are things on your side of the ocean?" she asked instead. "Any luck with the apartment search?"

"Maybe. What's more important? Bug-free, or -"

"Bug-free."

"You don't say." He laughed. "I better go. This is costing us."

Dawn sighed and squeezed the watch, as if he were somehow held within it. "Xander..."

"It's gonna get better, Dawn."

"For us. What about Willow?"

†

The flat had been lousy with mourners for the last two days - or at least, it felt that way to Willow, who wanted to be alone so badly that even the presence of a few of them seemed unbearable. Buffy and Faith had tried to coordinate open visitation hours so that they would come in groups, and this afternoon it was the distant friends and acquaintances of Giles, all of them strangers to the Sunnydale girls, most of them ignorant of the Giles' real purpose. They were politely sympathetic but clearly suspicious of Faith as the primary heir, and Willow was already exhausted by making up safe topics to talk about.

She was standing by the table now with a rich-looking old man, a sometime colleague who had brought an elaborate fruit basket and didn't seem to know who was the proper recipient of it. "And you're his niece, was it?" he asked Willow.

"No. Just a friend."

"Ah. Then the young lady with the adventurous blouse, she's the closest relation?"

Willow clutched her drink and shook her head. "No, she was just a good friend of his."

"And those two sisters who greeted me at the door?"

"Friends."

Elsewhere in the room, she could hear Buffy and the others having similar conversations. Willow tried to concentrate on her own and not listen in on theirs, but when she heard the doorbell ring once again, she turned her back to it, holding back a wince. "We all met him when he lived in California," she said to the old professor. Maybe they could talk about their respective homelands; that was an easy one.

The sound of the door opening overlapped Buffy's voice, heightened by surprise: "What are _you_doing here?"

The voice that replied was male, and American, and full of dry wit. Willow had forgotten that she was waiting for it. "I'm with the band," he said.

"I'm sorry," Willow stammered at the professor. "But, there's, a person, and I have to, because, it was nice to meet you, but, person. Bye."

The person entered the flat, weary and rough from travel, one bag slung over his shoulder and all his attention on Buffy. Both of them turned to look at Willow as she rushed over. "Hey," said Oz.

Thanks to his immunity to the need for pleasantries, it didn't take long for Oz to greet everyone in the room that he knew and escape everyone else. As soon as he had sized up the formal clothing and hushed English voices, he asked to speak to Willow alone and she obliged instantly, showing him to the tiny guest room that she'd had to herself for the past few days. They sat together on the bed, just like they used to in her bedroom in Sunnydale, just like they had in her college dorm when he returned to show how he had changed, just like they had in his home in Tibet when she told him she was nothing without her magic.

"Are all of you moving in here?" he asked.

Willow shook her head vehemently. "Just Faith. We're helping her settle in."

"Nice of you."

"I guess. I think everyone's kinda relieved I'm leaving before they are. I'm not quite helping enough for them to want to endure my company along with it."

"Don't say that, Will."

"Whatever," she said. "So, to quote Buffy..."

"What am I doing here?" He bent down to unlace his boots. "Not a gripping tale. The Yak Express mail came through with a notification that Rupert Edmund Giles had left me a box of vintage records and I could either have it shipped or pick it up here. Thought I'd save someone the postage and come pay my respects."

"You missed the funeral," said Willow, and then her eyes widened as she put it together. "Is that how you found out? Nobody called you?"

The corner of Oz's mouth twitched. "Andrew called me."

"I...I'm so sorry, Oz."

"You had other things on your mind." He clasped his hands between his knees and gazed at her, wise-eyed. "Am I right?"

She knew what he meant. There had been so many things to worry about since Giles died, so many people to console and mementos to distribute, like the secret stone in her pocket now and the Codex in Dawn's luggage. Buffy was right; that Giles had specified Dawn as the book's keeper spoke volumes. Indeed it was the first thing that had given Willow a surge of surprise since she had fallen from the sky and onto the dead earth of the present. What nobody was saying, of course, was that the book was useless. In a world without magic, it didn't need to be in trusted hands any more than Giles' copy of _Great Expectations._

Willow had many things on her mind. Oz had not been one of them. Neither had Giles.

She started crying almost instantly, failing to hide it with her hands. "You're right, I'm sorry, goddess, I'm a horrible person..." Oz reached out to hug her, and she sobbed into his shoulder for a few seconds before recovering and flinching away. "I just don't know how to keep living. I can't talk to anyone. I can't believe he's gone, I mean _really literally_can't believe it. I can't even think about it long enough to understand how it could be true."

"You're not a horrible person," he said, making no further attempt to touch her. "But Giles is dead. And you're alive."

Willow sniffed back the last of her tears. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I want you to come live with us in Tibet."

The words hung in the air, waiting for her to accept their submission into reality. Oz was sitting on the bed beside her, still and serious. "Why?" she asked at length.

"Why not? You were doing good there. You lived without magic. The baby liked you." He paused. "We're out of the monastery, by the way. We're building a little house of our own. Just me and Bay and Kelden and Ice Nose. You could make it five."

She shook her head, incredulous. "Bay would let you do that?"

"It was her idea." He looked grave. "I won't lie, Will, you've been hell on my marriage. Pulling us into your war was just the audition. Now our sanctuary's done for and it turns out my wife's been lying to me these past years about where our magic was going. She's not your biggest fan. But she still wants to help people, and you're looking like the best candidate."

"But she knows...I mean, you and I used to..."

"Yeah. She knows me too well to worry about that. Plus, the walls of the room where you and Kennedy were sleeping? Not that thick."

Willow squirmed. "Right. Kennedy. She and I kind of didn't so much work things out. It was...you are really not looking surprised right now."

"Never did get habitual with the expression thing," he agreed. "But yeah. I didn't see a happy ending coming on with that."

"I wasn't looking for a happy ending. I never thought there would be an ending. But now that's all there is, just ending, and nobody's happy."

"You could be. I know you don't believe it now, but there's a future for you. We'll introduce you to some chill people, teach you some new crafts. We could use a tech expert in the area, you'd be a real hit."

The peaceful life that Oz proposed flowed into her mind's eye like a vision. She imagined herself walking with local women, taking care of animals, teaching her friend's sweet child to talk and read. It was an offer of ultimate generosity, far more than she deserved. Oz knew it, and begrudged it not at all, and oh, how she missed his company.

Then she remembered a radiant figure of white and green, telling her exactly how to save the world. She remembered failing. Her eyes filled up with tears once more. "I can't," she whispered. "You don't understand. I just can't."

Oz's voice was urgent. "Willow-"

"I'm not who I used to be."

"Willow."

"Just go back home. Work on your marriage. Tell her I'm sorry about everything."

"What did Giles give you?"

That gave her a start. Her hand pressed her pocket. "What? Nothing."

"He gave something to everyone," Oz said patiently. "What did he want you to have? Who did he think you were?"

Willow stood up and turned away from him. "I'm going out. Talk to Faith if you need a place to stay until your return flight."

She didn't really expect him to stop her. Certainly he would have back in Sunnydale, but he knew that he no longer had that right, didn't he? Apparently not - his hand was on her shoulder before she reached the door, and it stayed there firmly until she faced him.

"Things changed," he said, "for both of us. When I left you I thought I'd find a way, someday, somehow, to make it up to you even if we could never be friends again. Since then I've seen you being slammed with these two huge losses, and I realized, what I did was nothing in comparison, and I can't fix what really went wrong. I can't give you Tara back, and I can't put magic back into the world. But this, I can do. Let me show you who you can be."

_He was angry,_ Tara had once said. _But he had a good soul. I could feel it._

She had always been able to feel the soul.

"Oz," Willow murmured. "I can be alone. That's all."

She left him there, disappointment etched across his face, and hurried through the house and the grieving throng to get outside before someone else tried to talk to her. It was sunny and full of the noises of people living their lives. She would have preferred dark skies and silence. Wasn't London supposed to be rainy?

She walked on, subconsciously hoping she might get lost. The city was sprawling and foreign, but she knew she couldn't really get far enough to forget where she had come from. Even Tibet wasn't far enough for that. Oz wanted to turn her into a normal woman, his resident lesbian tech whiz babysitter, as if she had never flown and killed and changed the world. Kennedy used to call her a goddess. Nobody ever would again. Now she was a shadow of her real self, a postscript to her own life, Willow the Wisp, harbinger of death.

There was a park bench on the side of the road, and she sank into it, paying no mind to the other pedestrians out enjoying the warm day. She took a deep breath, and winced - her ribs were still mending. The object in her pocket dug into her thigh, and finally, she took it out and held it in the palm of her hand.

It was a chunk of rose quartz, unpolished but with a hole drilled through so that it could be strung on its slender leather cord. It had virtually no monetary worth, and it didn't make an especially attractive piece of jewelry. Like all of the inheritance gifts, it had come with no note, but she had recognized it instantly, even after all these years. She had first seen it in the drawer of Miss Calendar's desk, after Angelus had snapped her neck and left red roses to mock her lover's pain. Willow had known so little about witchcraft at the time, but she took her pagan teacher's word that the stone had healing powers, and truly believed that Giles needed it most and that even the thought might help him, and so the stone was passed into his hands.

Someone had put red roses on his casket, and Willow wondered if it was her own pain being mocked this time.

Clearly Giles, the greatest mind that Willow had ever encountered, had anticipated that she was the one who would need healing once he was gone. She wasn't too miserable to be touched by that, but the truth was hard and clear: Giles had never imagined that his death would come hand-in-hand with the end of magic. He might not have been able to recognize the effect that the rose quartz had on his heart as he grieved, but he had known, long before she had ever taken up research on the subject, that the powers of crystals were real, and not merely ascribed to them by new-age Wiccans. However subtle or insignificant, this pendant had contained a spiritual salve of true magic, and he had chosen her to receive it.

Now it contained nothing. It was a cold, dead pink rock. There was no healing here.

Willow stood up, slipping the pendant back into her pocket. She ought to go back and say goodbye to Oz before he went home. She realized that she hadn't asked if he and his family were still werewolves, and that she didn't care. She was leaving London herself soon, and she had her own matters to take care of first.

Giles had owned quite a few useless books beyond the Codex, some of which she already knew contained explicit references to Saga Vasuki, and Faith had said that anything that fit in their suitcases was fair game. Quite a few could fit into Willow's suitcase. It wasn't as if her own parting gift was taking up much room.


	5. Starving for Attention

**Title: **Starving for Attention

**Author: **Kairos

**Rating: **PG-13

**Notes: **Written before S9 and promptly Jossed. I wanted this to happen so bad.

* * *

Necessity doesn't quell misgivings; Faith's past contains some vile deeds, but force-feeding blood to a traumatized friend is a grisly chore by anyone's standards. Angel struggled the first time, so that more of it ended up on his face than inside him, and Faith left his side feeling hopeless and streaked with gore.

Now she returns with the blood in a Coke bottle instead of a cup, only to find him kneeling over a dark stain. "Jesus," she snaps, unthinking. "Now you're pullin' a bulimic hunger strike on me? No. This time you're gonna drink and you're gonna keep it down if I have to stand there holding your-"

"Please." His voice is soft and pitiful. "Faith, don't make me."

Startled to hear her name from his lips, Faith lets her anger go and edges toward him around the pool of regurgitated blood. His head is hanging down, his hands on his knees. It hurts to look at him. "C'mon, buddy," she says, gently now, letting her fingers rest on his shoulder. "Why won't you eat?"

One of his hands, no more clean than the rest of him, reaches out for her. She lets him pull her down and move her fingers to his chest, uncertain about what new kind of madness this could be but ready to interpret it as progress if she can. For a moment, they both crouch there awkwardly, and then Faith stops thinking about how far gone Angel is and starts thinking about the strange pulsing sensation beneath her hand.

It's not possible. Some human guy must be wearing an extremely convincing Angel mask. Or he's got a prank heart stuffed under his shirt. Either way, it can't be Angel here with a genuine human heartbeat because that's not possible.

"I tried to keep it down, but..."

Faith withdraws her hand slowly. "Who are you?"

He laughs, short and humorless. "Twilight, they told me."

"You need food." Impossibility aside, she knows he's not Twilight and he's not a vampire and that means he hasn't eaten in a dangerously long time. "Come on. I know how to make Spaghetti-O's." She stands and offers a hand to help him up.

He takes it. Whatever it is she's dealing with now, hell if that doesn't count as progress.


End file.
